I'm a lifelong history buff and the author of "LEAD LIKE IKE: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day", published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. I'm also the author of the thrillers "THE DARK SAINT," "DOUBLE BLIND" and "ENGAGED TO KILL". All books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I was the keynote speaker at the 2010 Eisenhower Legacy Dinner at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. A regular contributor to Forbes.com, I've been gainfully employed in business journalism and corporate communications for more than a quarter-century. Working both freelance and on-staff, I have worked for Condé Nast, Deloitte Consulting, Fairchild Publications, and News Corp., as well as nonprofit organizations such as The Conference Board and the Society of Corporate Secretaries & Governance Professionals, where I was Vice President, Communications. I get around: I've addressed large audiences from Fortune 500 companies on numerous business topics. And I've been interviewed by ABC News, Fortune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily, in addition to Compliance Week, Directors & Boards, and Corporate Boards. I was Managing Editor of Across the Board (now known as The Conference Board Review), a monthly business magazine of thought and opinion at The Conference Board, and I was the first director of The Conference Board's website, which won numerous awards upon its launch. Like many writers, I once dreamed of writing the great American novel but gave that up in an attempt to write the great American screenplay. The closest I came to that lofty achievement was writing "Hero in the Family" with John Drimmer for The Wonderful World of Disney on ABC. I've been a member of the Writers Guild of America, East for more than twenty years. I live in Scarsdale, New York, with my wife Margy, son Gregory, and our wonderful little dog, Heidi.
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Leadership: If You're Not First, You're Last

Last week, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Annenberg Survey reported that the president of the past 25 years who was admired most was none other than Bill Clinton — with a whopping 42% of the 1,238 adults responding to the survey.

What about the other three presidents of the last 25 years? Well, 18% of survey respondents chose President Barack Obama; 17% named George W. Bush; and 16% named his father, George H. W. Bush. Given the margin of error, that is a dead heat at the bottom.

I was shocked both by Clinton’s huge margin and by the fact that George W. Bush was basically the same as his father and our current president. Clinton’s huge margin can be explained in large part thanks to a relentless and successful PR campaign to rehabilitate his image. But “W” being the same as the other two? How soon folks forget.

* Bill Clinton presided over a very healthy economy and balanced the budget — the first president to manage that since Dwight Eisenhower 40 years earlier. But the recession that drove Clinton’s election victory over George H. W. Bush had already ended by Election Day, so Clinton gets no credit for that. And the economy was in fantastic shape because of the PC/Internet boom, an era of economic revitalization unmatched since the Industrial Revolution. If credit for the surging economy needs to be given to someone named “Bill,” I would suggest Bill Gates instead of Bill Clinton. Clinton’s health-care plan, the first and only major initiative of his presidency, was dead on arrival on Capitol Hill, landing on the scrap heap along with Harry Truman and Richard Nixon’s plans.

However, Clinton adroitly outmaneuvered a Republican House, forcing compromise on welfare reform. And he did balance the budget. He also dropped more bombs on more places than any peacetime president in history (but that happened outside the United States, so who cares?). And he still found time for extracurricular activities in the Oval Office. And . . . Clinton teamed up with Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) to repeal Glass-Steagle. That repeal led to the “Too Big to Fail” catastrophe of the recent recession. Wow.

Leadership grade: C+ / Image grade: A+

* Barack Obama inherited two active shooting wars. No other president ever walked into the Oval Office with that waiting for him. And that’s not all. He inherited the deepest, ugliest recession since the Great Depression. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, no one has ever become president under darker circumstances. Five and a half years after taking office, Obama has wound down both wars (yes, Iraq is looking very ugly right now, but isn’t the underlying uglieness of Iraq why we wanted to get our troops out of that country?), and the economy is recovering.

He found and killed Osama bin Laden a little more than 2 years after taking office. (His predecessor couldn’t accomplish this in 7 years.)

Despite harsh partisan opposition, Obama passed the recovery act to reinvest in America and create jobs and he passed health-care reform, something no other president ever achieved. Whether you like Obamacare or not, it’s still astounding that a president with two wars and a crippled economy managed to pass health care legislation when three other presidents of both parties had failed.

Leadership grade: A+ / Image grade: C-

* George W. Bush is one of the worst leaders the modern world has seen. The idea that he could be rated as equal to his father or Obama is ludicrous. He started two wars without any realistic plans for the end-games in either war. And the two wars were paid off-budget. In theory, they did not count against the mounting federal debt. (If only being off-budget meant they were free.) American lives lost, tons of dollars spent — all to accomplish nothing.

Bush famously claimed that he would get Osama bin Laden. Dead or alive. He got nothing.

Two pointless wars would be enough to qualify “W” for the Hall of Shame, but it doesn’t stop there. He was reelected on a platform to reform Social Security — the first national candidate to touch the third rail of politics and survive. He had a mandate for reform and then frittered it away with a series of unfocused speeches around the country. No reform.

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